Part 3 Children - The Challenge of Creative Teaching
On the 24th of September 2009, the west Australian ran an article about modern families in Australia based on the Australian Bureau of statistics.
In 80 per cent of the families, at least one parent said they always felt pressed for time "trying to achieve a work-life balance".
Working mums were more likely than dads to be pressed.
The data has not surprised Families Australia, which said many families were under increasing pressure to balance work and family life.
"There is a concerning trend towards working unfriendly family hours," chief executive Brian Babington said.
This is putting growing pressure on other family members, such as grandparents, to offer care.
So it is important to discuss raising Christian families in the 21st century.
Even those of us without children recognise the need to support the families in our church.
1. It takes time and effort
2. It takes creative encouragement
3. CREATIVE CORRECTION
4. Training Our children
5. Honour is the expression of respect or esteem.
“THIS IS IMPORTANT”
1. It takes time and effort
The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being’s mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it’s too hard.
John Lennon
1940-1980, British Rock Musician
When some of us think of instruction, we see a teacher standing in front of a classroom giving lectures on how to multiply, divide, or do fractions. But good teaching is never limited to lectures. We are not simply pouring information into the heads of our children; we are relating to peolple who have feelings, thoughts, and choices to make. Thus, the most effective way of teaching involves conversation between parents and children. Sometimes the parent is taking the initiative: “I want to tell you something my mother told me.” Other times, the child is taking the lead: “Why does the bear sleep all winter?” Both are valid approaches to teaching. Our challenge is to raise our children creatively.
Deuteronomy 6:1-10
Graham Blame, chief psychiatrist at Harvard University, states that the most serious problem with television was not its poor programming but that it destroyed the average family’s conversation at the evening meal. When people are anxious to see a favourite program, they hurry through the meal. What happened during the day, the little things and the bigger matters, are never discussed. I remember growing up in my family, meal times were the place where children talked to their parents and vice versa.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:7
Walking along the road: When Moses first suggested this method for the Hebrew parents of his day, the primary mode of transportation was walking. Mankind has always been “on the move.” Whether one’s livelihood is made by hunting, fishing, and berry picking or going to Sydney to close a business deal, people travels. Only the mode of travel has changed. It is in the car that families move from home to school or church or the shopping mall or the foot ball game. Car travel is an excellent time for conversation between parents and children. It is on these trips that children often raise questions with which they are grappling. It does not have to be in the car, for some parents they talk to their children before bed time. But any time that parents and children are together is a good time.
Sometimes they ask for information, but often they ask the “why” questions. This gives parents an excellent opportunity for discussing their values with the child. Parents who have not found satisfactory values for their own lives often become frustrated with their children’s why questions and end up avoiding those questions as often as possible. On the other hand, parents who hold, firm values and hold them very deeply are sometimes inclined to be dogmatic and domineering in trying to instil their values in their children. Values, however, are best passed on to the next generation not by dogmatism but by modelling and dialogue. Let your children observe your life, and they will see what is important to you. Let them ask questions and give them honest answers, and they will have the best opportunity of internalizing your values. Ultimately, the growing child may reject or accept parental values, but the healthy process is dialogue. Such dialogue most often occurs in the informal settings of life while we are on the way to do other things.
“THIS IS IMPORTANT”
2. It takes creative encouragement
If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
1929-1994, American First Lady, Wife of John F. Kennedy & Aristotle Onassis
The second area of creative teaching is encouragement. The word ‘encourage’ means “to instil courage.” courage is that state of mind that gives our children the ability to explore possibilities to take risks, to accomplish what others may find impossible. How parents teach children has a great deal to do with whether the children are encouraged or discouraged. In healthy families, parents give children many encouraging words
As parents we must not wait until our children accomplishes perfection before we give encouraging words. Some parents are fearful that if they encourage their child for mediocre work, the child will never rise above the level of the mediocrity. In reality, the opposite is true. If you refrain from encouraging the child’s less than perfect efforts, the child will never rise to his or her potential. They will think that anything less than perfection is a failure. In their mind they will soon think they are a failure and quit trying.
We must learn to give children encouraging words for their efforts, not for the results.
There are many biblical characters that had setbacks.
i. Joseph when his brothers sold him into Slavery,
ii. Joseph when Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him,
iii. Abraham when he lied and said that his wife was his sister,
iv. Peter when he denied that he knew Christ.
I know that they must have felt badly with their setbacks too, but all of them went on to become great men for God.
Encouraging words, written or spoken, live in the minds of children long after they are forgotten by the parents who spoke them.
3. CREATIVE CORRECTION
“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.” Deuteronomy 6:6
17 "Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. Job 5:17
Parents, they’re strict on you when you’re little, and you don’t understand why. But as you get older, you understand and you appreciate it.
Grant Hill
NBA Basketball Player
A good question for the parent to ask is, “Is the behaviour I am about to correct truly destructive to my child? Will it be detrimental to his future if I allow it to continue?” If the answer is yes, then correction is in order. If the answer is no or if you are uncertain, then it is time to explore the child’s behaviour further. Perhaps you will find an opportunity to encourage the developing of creativity and imagination.
20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:20-23
Assuming correction is needed, we must correct out of love, not out of uncontrolled anger. Love seeks the well-being of the child and believes that the correction given is for the long-term benefit of our children. When parents express uncontrolled anger, they are simply the venting their own frustration and may be extremely destructive to their own children. I am not suggesting that a parent should never feel anger toward their children; that is unrealistic. Anger is the emotion that arises inside us when we perceive that the child has done wrong, such as when he refuses to follow our instruction or interprets our “no” as a “maybe”, that could turn into a “yes” if he pleads with us long enough.
Anger is a perfectly normal and often wholesome emotion. Its purpose is to motivate us to take constructive action; however, parents often allow their anger to go unchecked and end up with destructive words and behaviour. If you feel anger toward your child and believe that the child needs correction, you will do far better to restrain your initial response, give yourself time to cool down, and then come back to verbally correct your child and to give further discipline if needed.
Love asks the essential question, “Is the correction I am about to give for the benefit of my child (or the entire family/community)?” It is this reality that must be communicated to the child in our efforts to correct. “I love you a lot. I love you a whole lot. And I want to see you live to adulthood, Therefore, you must never again ride your bicycle without a helmet. Understand?” If, after this loving correction, you hand the child a newspaper clipping of a teenager who was killed when thrown from a bicycle, you are likely to have a helmet-wearing child forever.
4. Training Our children
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:7
He that does not bring up his son to some honest calling and employment, brings him up to be a thief.
Jewish Proverbs
Sayings of Jewish Origin
Let’s begin at the beginning. Our children learn first and primarily by our model. They are forever observing our actions, our lifestyle. If what we say is not consistent with what we do, they are the first to recognize it and usually to tell us so, Someone has suggested that until a boy is fifteen, he does what his father says; after that, he does what his father does. This is both a frightening and a wonderful thought for most parents. It is frightening to know that we have such a tremendous impact upon the lives of our children, but it is encouraging to realize that whatever we know or don’t know about parenting, if we live lives worthy of emulation, we will powerfully influence our children in a positive direction. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I regard no man as poor who has had a godly mother.” Who we are speaks loudly to our children and is perhaps our most powerful method of training.
Christian Author Gary Chapman talks about this in his book ‘The family you have always wanted’. “Through all my early childhood years, my father worked the third shift in a textile mill, going to work at 11:00 p.m. and getting off at 7:00 a.m. Each morning as I was preparing to go to school, he was preparing to go to bed. Apart of his morning pattern was to pray, either kneeling by the bed or in the bathroom. My father had the habit of praying aloud. I don’t mean screaming, but in a normal voice he prayed aloud. As I shuffled from my room to the kitchen, I often heard him pray. Sometimes, I heard him pray for me. I knew praying was important to him, and it became important to me. It became so important that my undergraduate and graduate studies in anthropology, philosophy, and history, all of which had little place for prayer, did not erase my own personal commitment to my father’s model.”
4 a) We train by showing how
25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ’What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ’It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ " Then the people bowed down and worshiped. Exodus 12:25-27
From where can your authority and license as a parent come from, when you who are old, do worse things?
(Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal 55 – 130 ad, Roman Satirical Poet
It is possible to sit in the living room with your child and tell him how to go fishing, but it is far more effective to take him to the lake and show him how. Football teams can watch video clips and devise strategies and better understand their opponents, but the real skills are learned on the practice field. Making beds, washing dishes, mopping floors, and washing cars are all best learned by on-the-job training.
Faith in God, learning to play sports, learning to clean a house etc are all learnt best by children watching their parents to see how it is done.
4 b) We train by weaving actions with words
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
E. V. Hill, the late pastor of a large congregation in the South Central area of Los Angeles, tells this story from his own life. He was in his early teens when he came home one night drunk. As he walked into his room, he threw up all over the floor. In a drunken stupor, he rolled onto his bed and fell asleep. His mother, observing the whole scene, let him sleep. At the proper morning hour, however, E.V. was awakened with his mother’s instruction. “E. V., get up. Get this floor cleaned up. Get yourself cleaned up. You and I are going on a trip.”
“I don’t want to go on a trip,” E.V. said.
His mother said, “I didn’t ask if you wanted to go on a trip. I said, ‘You and I are going on a trip.’ Now get this floor cleaned up and get yourself cleaned up.”
E.V. started the process and in due time was ready for his trip. In the late morning, he and his mother boarded the subway for a destination unknown to E. V. Emerging from the tube, he found himself on skid row. His mother cooked at one of the rescue missions two nights a week, so many of the men on skid row knew her. As the mother and son walked down the sidewalk, the men greeted her. “Good afternoon, Mama Hill.”
One man asked, “Why are you here so early?”
And she had them explain to him the dangers of alcohol.
4 c) We can only train our kids if we get training to be Christian parents
... for the gracious hand of his God was on him [Ezra]. 10 For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. Ezra 7:5-15
Because if you really want to be a professional player, training two three or even four times a week, it’s not enough to get there.
Thomas Dooley
German, Athlete
Some of you are young parents. You have not had a lot of experience in teaching and training. Your vocation may not require a lot of transferable skills. You honestly have very little idea how children learn, and, thus, you have little idea how parents can effectively teach and train. You may feel inept, even frightened, at this awesome responsibility. The good news is that practical help is readily available. It does require time and sometimes the investment of a little money, but thousands of parents can testify to the effectiveness of formal education in learning to teach and train children, through books or courses.
OBSERVE OTHERS
Much can be learned about teaching and training children by observing teachers and trainers. Watch other parents in action. Almost any social setting will give you an opportunity to see parents relating to children. The supermarket, the library, the church, the mall, and the restaurant are all settings where parents and children interact. Observe both the positive and the negative interactions between parent and child. Perhaps you will want to get a notebook where you can write these observations down and reflect upon them later. Keep in mind that you can learn from negative examples of teaching and training as well as from positive examples.
TO SPANK—OR NOT?
“A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them” Proverbs 13:24
I don’t know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw this kid up?
Russell Bishop (New Zealand Maori Academic)
I am often asked, “What about spanking as a consequence for disobedience?” Spanking is often used by the unthinking parent, the parent who is unwilling to take time to think about relating the consequences of disobedience to the rule that was broken. In my opinion, it is usually far more effective to tie the consequences to the behaviour. Spanking a child is not a cure-all for misbehaviour; it may, in fact, be a reflection of the parents’ unwillingness to invest time trying to teach their child obedience.
I am not saying that there is never a time to use spanking as a consequence for misbehaviour. It seems to me that when a child is physically beating up on another child, this would be an appropriate time to use spanking. He is physically beating the other child; therefore, giving him a spanking in which he feels physical pain is letting him gain some sense of what the other person experienced. Such a spanking, however, should not be given in the heat of emotional rage but with calmness and deliberateness and love. The child lost his temper with another child and started beating up on him; that sequence should not be repeated by the parent losing their temper and hitting their child.
Effective teaching of obedience requires that consequences for breaking rules should cause discomfort to the rule breaker. If the rule is that our children do not smoke cigarettes, then, if a child is caught smoking, he must immediately eat a carrot—the whole thing. This will give the body beta carotene to overcome the nicotine, and chances are he will think twice about smoking a second cigarette. If there is a second violation, a $25 donation to the American Heart Association, picking up 100 cigarette butts from the street and putting them in the trash can, and reading an article on the dangers of nicotine to the lungs will probably be enough to convince him that smoking is for camels and not for children.
If a sixteen-year-old is found speeding, then he loses the privilege of driving for a week. A second offense would be loss of driving privileges for two weeks, and so forth. Not many teenagers would get beyond the two-week loss.
5. Honour is the expression of respect or esteem.
“1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 Honour your father and mother— which is the first commandment with a promise—
3 that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Ephesians 6
The trouble with parents is that by the time they are experienced, they are unemployed.
Source Unknown
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
King Edward Windsor
1894-1972, King Edward VIII of Great Britain
It is recognizing the importance of someone and seeking to express love and devotion to that person. To honour someone is to draw attention to that person’s character. In order to truly honour parents, a child must come to understand something of the nature of right and wrong, of sacrifice and love. The desire to honour comes from recognizing that parents have made right decisions and have sacrificially loved the child and each other. A child comes to respect and honour a parent when he recognizes that the parent’s behaviour has been truly good.
I must pause long enough to say that there is an honour, however diluted, that honours parents for position and not character. The parents have given the child life; therefore, they are exceedingly important. The child honours them for the importance of their position as parents but acknowledges that, when their character is observed, the parents are not worthy of honour. Tragically, many children in our generation, if they are to express honour at all, must express it on this shallow level. But this is not the characteristic of a functional family.
“YOU AND DAD DID A REALLY GOOD JOB”
12 "Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12
We never know the love of the parent till we become parents ourselves.
Henry Ward Beecher
1813-1887, Congregational Minister
The capacity for honour is only slightly developed in the early childhood years. It reaches its finest hour three or four years after the child has grown up. I know one woman whose daughter, now in her early twenties and newly married, told her not long ago, “You and Daddy did a really good job raising me.” The mother, who, like all parents, sometimes questioned how “well” she and her husband did as parents, became misty and gave her daughter a big hug. “You made it easy, kiddo,” she said.
But honour can be cultivated in younger children as well. If a child has been taught to stand when an adult enters a room, it is at first a perfunctory act. But in due time, it may become an expression of genuine honour.
1. It takes time and effort
2. It takes creative encouragement
3. CREATIVE CORRECTION
4. Training Our children
5. Honour is the expression of respect or esteem.
Close in prayer for parents
For the powerpoint to this sermon feel free to contact me at pastor@southperthbaptist.org
